What Does 1 Corinthians 14:13 Mean?
So let the one who speaks in a tongue no one knows pray that he may carry it across.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Wherefore let him that speaketh in an unknown tongue pray that he may interpret.THE KEY
The utterance reaches shared understanding when its meaning is carried through interpretation.
THE MEANING
When you speak in a tongue, this verse joins prayer to interpretation. Meaning can pass from one voice into understanding others can receive.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the assumption that speaking itself makes a message clear; an utterance’s meaning still has to reach understanding.
THE ROOT
διερμηνεύῃ
diermēneuē
GROWS FROM
ἑρμηνεύω
hermēneuō
To explain, interpret, or translate; the compound verb carries interpretation through to intelligible meaning.
“carry it across” in this verse is diermēneuē. This word family includes interpretation and the interpreter, showing that the utterance’s path continues toward meaning another person can receive. Interpretation carries speech from a voice into shared understanding.
ALSO GROWS
hermēneia: Interpretation; the act or result of explaining meaning.
ἑρμηνεία
The same word family names the work that makes an utterance understandable.
hermēneutēs: Interpreter; one who explains or translates.
ἑρμηνευτής
This branch names the person who carries meaning from the utterance to its hearers.
THE PATTERN
A spoken message becomes shared when its meaning is made understandable to its hearers.
So they read aloud from the scroll of the instruction of God, spread open, and set the sense in place, and caused the people to perceive in the reading.Cretes and Arabians, we hear them speak in our tongues the great works of God.So also you, unless you give through the tongue a word with a clear sign, how shall what is spoken be known? For you will be speaking into the air.THE THREAD
I wish all of you to speak in tongues, but rather that you prophesy. For greater is the one who prophesies than the one who speaks in tongues, unless he carries it across, so that the assembly may take hold of the building up.The same verb family appears here for interpretation, and the verse names what interpretation makes possible: the assembly receives edification. It opens this verse’s prayer as a movement from utterance toward meaning others can receive.
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